Geography

Topics on the land, regions, cities, and physical setting of South Korea.

• Seoul — Capital and largest city of South Korea; the nation’s political, economic, and cultural center in the Han River basin.
• Busan — South Korea’s second-largest city and principal port; a maritime, mercantile metropolis on the southeast coast.
• Jeju Island — South Korea’s largest island and a volcanic UNESCO-listed tourism hub; home of the haenyeo divers and site of the April 3 Incident.
• Incheon — South Korea’s third-largest city and principal international gateway; home of Incheon International Airport, the Port of Incheon, and the Songdo smart-city district.
• Daegu — South Korea’s fourth-largest city and the economic and cultural hub of the southeastern interior; a historic textile center and the conservative “TK” heartland.
• Gyeonggi Province — South Korea’s most populous province, the industrial and residential ring surrounding Seoul; home to the country’s largest regional economy, major chip fabs, the Pangyo tech cluster, and the DMZ frontier.
• Ulsan — South Korea’s heavy-industrial capital on the southeastern coast; home to the country’s largest petrochemical complex, Hyundai’s flagship auto plant, and Hyundai Heavy Industries’ shipyard.
• Gwangju — The largest city of the southwestern Honam region; a symbol of Korea’s democracy movement and the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, and home of the Gwangju Biennale and the Asia Culture Center.
• Daejeon — South Korea’s fifth-largest metropolitan city and foremost science hub at the geographic center of the country; home to the Daedeok Innopolis research complex, KAIST, and the national rail nexus.
• Suwon — The capital of Gyeonggi Province and largest non-metropolitan city; home to Samsung’s Digital City R&D complex and the UNESCO-listed Hwaseong Fortress, a microcosm of Korea’s Joseon-heritage-to-semiconductor arc.
• Gangwon Province — South Korea’s mountainous northeastern province; site of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, the country’s primary forestry and hydroelectric zone, and a heavily militarized DMZ frontier facing North Korea.
• Gyeongju — The ancient capital of the Silla kingdom in North Gyeongsang Province; a UNESCO-listed “museum without walls” of royal tumuli, Bulguksa, Seokguram, and Cheomseongdae, and Korea’s premier heritage-tourism destination.
• North Gyeongsang Province — South Korea’s largest province by area, in the southeast; the ancient Silla heartland around Gyeongju, POSCO’s steel city of Pohang, the Gumi electronics complex, and the conservative “TK” bloc anchored by adjacent Daegu.
• Korean Diaspora and Overseas Korean Communities — The estimated 7.3–7.5 million ethnic Koreans abroad; the colonial, war, and industrial-era migration waves, the major communities from Los Angeles to Yanbian, and the diaspora’s role in Hallyu and Korean soft power.
• South Gyeongsang Province — South Korea’s south-eastern industrial province around the capital Changwon; the Geoje shipbuilding yards, the K9 and KF-21 defence-and-aerospace cluster, Jinju’s Imjin War heritage, and the southern Yeongnam identity.
• South Jeolla Province — The south-western Honam heartland; the 1,600-island Dadohae coast, Korea’s premier farming and seaweed region, the Yeosu petrochemical complex and Goheung’s Naro Space Center, and a deeply progressive political identity.
• The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) — The 4-km-wide, 248-km buffer strip dividing the two Koreas since the 1953 armistice; the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom, the infiltration tunnels and heavy militarization, and its accidental emergence as an ecological sanctuary.
• North Jeolla Province — The northern Honam province (Jeonbuk Special Self-Governing Province since 2024); the Honam Plain rice bowl, the hanok-village capital and bibimbap city of Jeonju, Iksan’s Baekje-era Mireuksa, the Saemangeum reclamation, and a deeply progressive political identity.
• Public Transportation and Urban Mobility — South Korea’s world-class transit systems — the Seoul Metropolitan Subway, the KTX high-speed rail network, bus and BRT services, smart-card and real-time information technology, and the GTX express-rail and autonomous-mobility future.